Summary of United Kingdom Results
Here in the UK, 1140 children took part in the in the original PIFA study.
- A total of 210 parents contacted the team with concerns about food related symptoms.
- Of these 135 required a clinical assessment, so were invited to the research facility.
- 70 of these were thought very likely to have a food allergy, so were invited to undertake a double blind food challenge which is thought the ‘gold standard’ of allergy diagnosis.
- 41 infants had a positive food challenge, which is an cumulative incidence of 5.0%.
- The most common food reacted to was hens egg (22 infants), closely followed by cows milk (20 infants).
- 12 infants were allergic to more than one food.
- Infants displayed differing symptoms, and some infants displayed more than one symptom at a time. The commonest symptom was eczema and/or urticaria (22 infants), with vomiting being the second most common (11 infants).
- Six infants displayed symptoms of food allergy whilst receiving only breast milk.
We are now aiming to follow up as many of the PIFA study children as possible in the iFAAM study to see who has outgrown their food allergy and who as developed food allergy or asthma.
